July 1st has come and gone. Canada is officially 150 years old. Happy Birthday Canada! So what is so great about living in Canada? Well, for one thing, we have the ability to criticize and ridicule our leader without fear of being shut down, publicly harassed or getting tweeted about at 3:00 am.

Actually, since I live in Manitoba, or as we like to refer to it, Canada’s window to Costa Rica, I’m not confident that applies to me, since our provincial leader refused to accept criticism, even from his own team. Just ask Steven Fletcher.

But as for the leader of our country, fire away. JT can handle it. Occasionally, he almost asks for it. In case you have been away and somehow missed it, Prime Minister Trudeau (the second) spent his Canada Day trying to dislodge his foot from his mouth after forgetting to acknowledge Alberta while naming off all of our provinces and territories in his Canada Day speech. He was quick to apologize, but the damage was done. Let the stoning commence.

This could very well go down in history as JT’s Fuddle Duddle, but time will tell. He still has time to outdo himself. What boggles my mind is the large number of people who are suggesting that he did it on purpose. Why would he do that? Possibly the Canadian love for apologizing. Get real!

Throughout history, politicians have made errors, slips of the tongue and outright screw-ups, and we laughed at them for it. Late night talk show hosts have made a good living pointing out political errors. The most infamous, of course, was George W. Bush. Who will ever forget, “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream,” or the classic, “They misunderestimated me.”

Almost as much fun was Bush senior’s VP Dan Quayle, with lines like, “Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child,” and “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.” But no one ever suggested that they said these things intentionally. So why is it that we are doing it now?

I think that it could possibly be because the current leader south of the border seems to take great delight in offending everyone. This is becoming the new norm and now we are expecting it from our PM as well. Well that is not the case ladies and gentlemen. Our Mr. T is not cut from the same soiled cloth as the one down south. He may be prone to errors, but he does not go out of his way to offend or anger people, even on occasions when we would like him to do exactly that.

In the middle of all the hoopla of Trudeau’s provincial brain fart, a bit of irony almost slipped under the radar. Global News, while quick to point out the Prime Minister’s goof up, made two spelling errors. While quoting the PM’s speech, they wrote Northwest Territories as Northwest Terrirtoes. Which leads one to wonder, were they referring to the lack of good manicurists up north, or was this a reference to the paws of a small dog? They also wrote Labrador as Laborador. Hard workers over there in Laborador. When their errors were pointed out online by yours truly and a few others, they quickly and quietly fixed them and pretended they never happened. Pity JT couldn’t do the same.

But for all his flaws, I will still take our Mr. T over the one down south. And although it isn’t perfect, Canada is a better country by far than many of its alternatives. I think I’ll keep it. Happy Birthday Canada.